Hahne and Company

Hahne & Company (commonly known as Hahne's) was a department store chain based in Newark, New Jersey. The chain had stores located throughout the state of New Jersey.

Early History

The firm was founded by Julias Hahne in 1858 as a specialty store which by the early 20th century had grown into a full-line department store. The store's motto was "The Store With The Friendly Spirit", and it became known as the "carriage trade" store in Newark, NJ.

In 1911, a modern flagship store designed by architect Goldwin Starrett was opened on Broad Street in downtown Newark. [ [http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/NJ/Essex/vacant.html National Regsiter of Historic Places, Building #94001005] , accessed 17 January 2008] [ [http://www.newarklandmarks.org/landmarkslist.htm The Newark Landmarks & Preservation Committee] , accessed January 17 2008] Occupying a 23 acre site, this single building contained convert|441000|sqft|m2 of selling space spread over five floors (basement through 4th floor), with an atrium in the center of the building which ran from the street floor to the 4th floor. An extensive Budget Store operated in the basement level until it was folded in the mid 1970s. The store also contained two popular dining rooms, the more formal "Pine Room" located on the street floor, and the counter-style "Maple Room" (located in the basement), which was very popular with downtown office workers. The "Maple Room" closed in the early 1980s when the basement level was closed as a selling floor, while the "Pine Room" remained open until the entire store was closed in 1987.

In 1916, Hahne's became one of the founding members of the Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG).

In 1929, Hahne's was the first of Newark's department stores to open a branch store, which was located on Church Street in Montclair, NJ.

uburban Growth

Starting in the 1950s, the company began to focus slowly on suburban growth. The Montclair store was replaced with a larger full-line branch and the original location became Hahne's Budget Store. In 1963, a location in Westfield was added. The firm did not enter the growing mall market in New Jersey until the 1970s, and this cost the chain valuable time in keeping up with its competitors.

Hahne's remained too focused on its Newark Store in the 1960s. The Montclair store was built too small to be a true department store, and management was so pressed for selling space in Montclair that it had to take Christmas decorations for the Montclair Store to the Newark Store to store them there. Although the Westfield store was attractive, Hahne's lacked the customer base to compete with the nearby Lord and Taylor in Short Hills.

Newark declined badly in the 1960s and 70's and the store, with most of its sales volume coming from the one Newark store, went down with it. The Newark store lacked parking, and was in a location that suburban shoppers felt was unsafe. Alan Kane had some good ideas but they were too little and too late to save the chain. The stores below that Alan started are still Lord and Taylor stores or are being operated by the chains that bought them, but the three that he inherited are all gone except for Westfield.

During the course of the 1970s and 1980s, the chain attempted to reach out to a broader shopper demographic with mixed results. In 1978, parent ADG appointed Alan Kane, a graduate of Wharton School of Business, as CEO of Hahne & Company. Kane oversaw the planning and opening of two new locations (Woodbridge Center and Rockaway Townsquare), and he steered the company toward a more focused, upper-market clientele. In 1986, ADG was sold to the May Department Stores Company. May first considered running Hahne's as a more moderate-focused chain to compete with Macy's, but Kane left the store after it was decided to take the company more down-market. It didn't make sense for ADG to run two stores with identical formats in the same market. You couldn't tell a Hahne's from a Lord and Taylor if you were standing in one. By 1988, May had decided to convert most of the Hahne locations to Lord and Taylor stores. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6D6123EF931A25752C0A96F948260&scp=23&sq=hahne+%26+company New York Times, 12 January 1989] , accessed January 17 2008] [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE2DA1331F934A25755C0A96F948260 New York Times, 17 June 1989] , accessed January 17 2008]

Locations

* Newark, Flagship, closed in 1987, now vacant
* Montclair, 1929 store: divided as retail and office space, 1951 store: demolished 2004 [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E2D9133EF93BA15752C1A9629C8B63&scp=3&sq=hahne+%26+company New York Times, 28 November 2004] , accessed January 17 2008] and redeveoped [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/realestate/10njzo.html?scp=6&sq=hahne+%26+company New York Times, 10 December 2006] , accessed January 17 2008]
* Westfield, now Lord and Taylor
* Livingston Mall, now Lord and Taylor
* Monmouth Mall, now Lord and Taylor
* Quaker Bridge Mall, now Lord and Taylor
* Woodbridge Center, now Fortunoff
* Rockaway Townsquare, now Lord and Taylor
* Bridgewater Commons, now Lord and Taylor
* Westfield Garden State Plaza, former Gimbels, now site of Nordstrom

ources

* "Store Vitamins" (company newsletter 1950 - 1973)
* "Hahnegram" (company newsletter 1976 - 1986)
* Associated Dry Goods Corporation, Annual Report: 1979 (This annual report spotlighted the new Woodbridge Center store and the many innovations planned by CEO Alan Kane)

External links

* [http://www.virtualnewarknj.com/busind/depart/hahne.php The Old Newark Web Group: Hahne & Company] , accessed January 17 2008
* [http://www.virtualnewarknj.com/memories/downtown/bodianbig3.htm The Old Newark Web Group: The "Big 3" Department Stores] , accessed January 17 2008
* [http://montclairtimes.com/page.php?page=1905 The Montclair Times: A Brief History of Hahne & Co] , accessed January 17 2008

References